


Kindle Fire with Snow

by easternepiphany



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-21
Updated: 2013-04-21
Packaged: 2017-12-09 03:28:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/769452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/easternepiphany/pseuds/easternepiphany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Heat, Cornwallis called it. Jeff rarely notices it either, unless someone points it out, because it’s always been there, since day one, since he saw her on the steps. It ebbs and flows but it’s never gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kindle Fire with Snow

**Author's Note:**

> [swarleysparkles101](http://swarleysparkles101.tumblr.com/) asked for 410 J/B fic, so here it is :)

 “Hey, we’re… okay, aren’t we?”

Britta pops up from the refrigerator with a confused look on her face. “Because of the History paper? It all worked itself out. Just, you know, don’t do it again.” She closes the door and moves to the counter, where she begins putting the freshly-washed plates back into the cupboard.

“No, I mean.” Jeff licks his lips nervously and sneaks a glance into the living room where Troy is helping Annie take the curtains down. “The whole thing Cornwallis said about me and you. And Troy.”

Troy and Annie fold the curtains, each taking one end and then coming together to form one neat little square. They’re both laughing as Annie tucks it back into her bag.

Britta follows Jeff’s gaze and the two of them watch in silence as Annie pats Troy on the arm before sorting through everyone’s presents, stacking them into individual piles. Troy joins Abed on the couch, where Kevin is dangling ribbon over the basket for the kittens to bat at. Annie pauses to take pictures with her phone and Shirley and Dean Pelton coo in unison.

“Don’t worry about it.” Britta tucks her hair behind her ears and turns back to the plates. She has to stand on her tip-toes to reach, and by the time she only has one more plate to put away, she’s struggling to get her arm to make it to the top of the pile.

“Here.” Jeff comes up behind her and slides the plate into place, where it settles with a clang against the one beneath it. He’s standing really close to her, really really close, and she smells like wine and Troy’s cologne. Her back is pressed into his torso and he stays there for a moment, his arm in the air parallel with hers. His wrist twitches, like his hand is going to reach for hers, and he quickly closes the cupboard and takes a step back.

“Thanks,” she says quietly. She scoops up a handful of silverware and pulls open a drawer, slotting forks and spoons into their appropriate places.

Annie comes in with a tray of cookies and spares a quick, nervous glance between the two of them before plastering a smile on her face. “Do you have any saran wrap?”

“Sure,” Jeff says. He grabs the tube off the counter and rips a sheet, carefully wrapping it over the cookie tray. His hands brush Annie’s and the sound of silverware has stopped; Britta’s watching out of the corner of her eye.

He takes the wrapped tray from Annie and places it in the spot where the clean plates had been stacked a minute before. He leans in a little to pretend to fix the saran wrap and nudges Britta’s arm so Annie can’t see. Britta looks up, just slightly, just enough to see him raise an eyebrow before he turns back to Annie.

“I took the curtains down,” she says, rolling her eyes slightly.

“I saw. Thanks. They weren’t really my style but I’ll tell you what. You find me a set that doesn’t look like it belongs in the bedroom of an eleven year old girl, and you can hang them up.”

A grin breaks out over Annie’s face and she bounces up and down a little. “Really? There’s always really good after-Christmas sales at the mall, I bet I could find something perfect for a good price!”

Jeff can’t help but smile at her but then Britta shuts the drawer with a little too much force and Annie starts.

“Oh, Britta,” Annie says carefully, “did you need any more help with the dishes? We’re pretty much done cleaning up in there.”

Britta looks up and Jeff expects her to be wearing that expression, that one she sometimes had back when they weren’t dating and he spent too much of study group staring at Annie. But her face is neutral, completely smooth, and Jeff’s confused because she’s _Britta_ and she tries her hardest not to wear her heart on her sleeve but she does, or maybe it’s just that he can always see it, pulsing and breaking and too big for someone so small.

“Nope, everything’s put away. Thank you, though.”

“Great!” Annie says, a little too loudly, smile a little too wide. “I’m going to… um.” She spins on her heel and goes back into the living room, taking a kitten out of the basket and curling up on the couch next to Abed.

Britta moves to the sink and rinses the sponge and begins wiping down the counters.

“This is the most I’ve ever seen you clean in my life,” Jeff jokes. He feels awkward and ungainly in his own kitchen.

She shrugs and doesn’t look up when he leans against the counter, towering over her again.

“Hey. You can tell me the truth, you know,” he says lowly. “I know it’s been kind of… you know, between us lately and I don’t want to cause a pro—”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says wearily. “Nothing’s been nothing between us lately because there _is_ nothing between us. You and I are friends and I have a boyfriend I’m very happy with and Cornwallis is a creepy old man who has no idea what he’s talking about.”

She runs the sponge under the water again. The water starts to steam but she doesn’t take her hands away. They begin to turn red.

He reaches over and twists the knob so the water runs cold. She pulls her hands back and reaches for a dishtowel, her cheeks flushed.

Graduation is in sight, so close Jeff’s already started thinking about which tie he should wear. His last semester at Greendale has been just as insane as all the rest, but somehow it’s a weird, inverted version of his first. Sometimes he catches Britta’s eye during History or study group or lunch and he has to remind himself he’s not chasing after her anymore. He chased her till he had her till he let her go till she found someone else.

Things about Britta that stick out in his mind from first semester: kissing her on the quad, watching her laugh with Vaughn, the feel of Italian faucets hitting his stomach, the first behind-the-back high five they ever exchanged.

Things about Britta that stick out in his mind from this semester: the way her fingers laced with Troy’s as they walked into class together, the tears in her eyes as they left his father’s house, her swaying back and forth in those ridiculous Doc Martens, the way his heart pounded in his chest as he typed out that text message.

“You don’t feel…?” he starts before he can stop himself.

Britta’s eyes widen and she looks past him to the living room. “You do?” she asks in a whisper, looking as though she might not want to know the answer.

“I didn’t say that.”

She sighs and slumps back against the counter. “Of course not.”

A laugh erupts from the living room and a kitten meows. Britta had fawned over each one, wondering out loud how many cats in her apartment is too many cats. In Jeff’s dresser drawer sits a squeaky stuffed mouse he bought two years ago but never gave her.

“We’re at a good place,” he says. “I wouldn’t want something like that to ruin it.”

“A good place,” she repeats, nodding.

Troy comes in the kitchen with a grin on his face and places a hand on the small of Britta’s back. It’s not possessive, it’s not for Jeff, it’s for Britta. Jeff wonders, for the millionth time this semester, what it is about Troy that makes Britta happy. Because she’s happy. Isn’t she?

“Let her be happy,” Pierce had told him, but Jeff’s still not sure what that means. What makes Britta happy? It certainly wasn’t him, but three minutes ago she was scalding her hands and not realizing it. Britta is both entirely too easy and too difficult to read. She is a paradox inside of a paradox, a mystery he will never solve but will always want to.

“Hey, babe, you ready to go? Abed wants to have a _Die Hard_ marathon.”

Britta smiles but it’s strained at the sides. Troy doesn’t seem to notice, but then again, he also doesn’t seem to notice that the kitchen seems to be about ten degrees warmer than the living room. Heat, Cornwallis called it. Jeff rarely notices it either, unless someone points it out, because it’s always been there, since day one, since he saw her on the steps. It ebbs and flows but it’s never gone.

“Sure,” Britta says. “We’re done in here, aren’t we, Jeff?”

It has one hundred meanings and the answer is always yes and no. So instead Jeff gestures toward the clean kitchen and nods. “All clean. Thanks for helping, guys.”

“Thanks for hosting!” Troy says. “As awesome as our apartment is, you were right, it was a much classier party here, even though it did start off kinda weird.”  His hand is still on Britta’s back and Jeff follows them into the living room, watching as Troy’s fingers make small circles against her shirt.

Shirley and Annie hug him goodbye, Annie promising to do research and send him pictures of curtains. They walk the dean to his door, saying adorable goodbyes to the kittens, Kevin’s meows sounding more like barks. Troy bumps shoulders with Abed and they’re off, wondering if they can get through all the _Die Hard_ movies in one night.

Britta touches Jeff’s arm as she walks past. “See you Monday.”

“Hey, wait.”

She stops and looks up at him. “Jeff, it’s fine. Really.”

“You’re happy, right?”

“Yes,” she says automatically. Then her face falls and contracts in on itself a little. She looks like she’s battling with herself and this is Jeff’s answer. It’s weird, because Pierce was right, but how is he supposed to let her be happy if he doesn’t know how?

“I’m happy,” she says finally. “Very happy.”

“Good,” he says. It sounds hollow.

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

He stands in the doorway as she catches up with the others and he waits until he can no longer hear their voices echoing in the hallway. When he closes the door, the apartment is a little cold.


End file.
